Praying for Suffering: The Height of Devotion

This prayer of asking God for suffering—'God, please let me suffer, and if you can't let me suffer, then let me die'—asking God for suffering seems resistant. And you see it across the religions. Where I was sharing that even in Mahabharat, the mother of the Pandavas is Kunti. So Kunti noticed that she doesn't turn to God unless she's suffering. She noticed this truly about herself. So she made this prayer: 'God, please make me suffer, because only when I suffer do I remember You. So if it takes suffering, let me suffer more.' It's very, very strong, but it is the height of devotion. So let all these stories, let all these examples of these great sages, let them prod us. Let them push us beyond the boundaries that we have set for ourselves.

You see, like the one story, just the story of Abraham, the way God explained it just shook up the life, this life here. And therefore, the expression of the sharing in satsang is now—the whole satsang seems to have a different quality because of that, you see? So to hear the examples of these great sages... and they may not... like when I first heard the story of Abraham, I didn't want to read it. But then something made me come back to it after a year or two years or something like that, and then I could really meet it in my heart. And then the question was: Do I have that faith? And if I don't have that faith, then what is the faith that I do have? What is the boundary of my faith?

I realized that it's very easy to say, 'My life is fully surrendered to God,' but if we are to be Abraham, then would we? Is it, or is it that we mean that 'My life is fully surrendered to God,' asterisk, read the fine print: conditional surrender. And that's where I started to realize that our faith, our spirituality, must risk what we take ourselves to be. There must be a risk involved. It can't just be safe-safe, nice-nice, sweet-sweet. When suffering comes or pain comes, immediately you turn toward God. But to pray to give me more and more, or to go like in that case of Saint Teresa, to inflict pain to somebody else or to auto-flagellation—don't worry about all that. Yes, I know it's coming from the mind.

So just you be with God. And you find that you are only being with God if you are suffering, then pray for suffering. Can you be with God otherwise? Yes, you can. So be with God. That's the important thing. Okay? But be true to yourself. So if you can be with God, just be with God, then you don't need to suffer. Okay? That's what Kabir Ji said: that if we can suffer when we are happy and content—if we can pray, if we can be with God when we are happy and content—then why would suffering need to come? Thank you. It's good.